Eminentoes / The Best Congressmen Money Can Buy
Lucas, William
"Eminentoes / The Best Congressmen Money Can Buy" When word got out that the FBI's 23-month, $800,000, 100-agent Abscam investigation had incriminated, among others, at least seven members of...
...Jenrette was not indicted, but the foreman of the grand jury was, for slipping details of the investigation to his congressman and working inside the jury on Jenrette's behalf...
...Democratic Whip John Brademas was" shocked" and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd was "shocked" and Minority Leader Howard Baker was "shocked," too...
...National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Suite 600 8316 Arlington Blvd...
...Most of the people up here are of high moral character...
...The congressman, who didn't have to abide by the rules, slugged a 109pound waitress in the stomach...
...Thanks to Harry Beck, American workers no longer have to support unwanted candidates or undesired political causes to keep their jobs...
...They backed people," explains Harry, "'I just wouldn't have backed...
...With the help of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, suit was brought against the CWA union by Harry and 19 other telephone company workers...
...The Sunday morning after the Abscam story broke, the Ethics Committee's chairman, Charles Bennett, announced that he had already established a subcommittee to investigate congressional bribe-taking, although he later revealed, in response to the outrage of his colleagues, who knew nothing of the investigation, that there had actfially been no investigation and no subcommittee until he picked up his Sunday newspaper...
...Some prosecutor or FBI agent may have considered the results of the Koreagate investigation or the case of the Honorable Michael Myers and concluded that something can happen to airtight cases before they come to trial...
...This last statement, as far as Alexander is concerned, is only a matter of hearsay...
...Alexander himself was appointed to the House Appropriations Committee, where he could oversee funding for the National Airport...
...Seiberling, the ACLU, and the many people who share their view of things would probably prefer that the Abscam prosecution be handled in the manner of Koreagate, that is to say, with no videotapes and precious little investigation...
...For Union Officials...
...He decided to quit drinking a few years back when he found himself incapable of forming sentences during his keynote address at an NAACP convention...
...It was at this point that Myers experimented again with the boundaries of congressional immunity--this time by allegedly accepting $50,000 from FBI agents...
...The officer filed charges of assault against Alexander and, like most Americans, was content to let justice take its course— except that it didn't...
...But then he learned that the CWA, one of the country's most politically active unions, was using the "agency fees" for partisan politics— and that made him mad...
...Consider a few of the novel fellows involved: First, there is the Honorable Michael Myers of South Philadelphia...
...The ACLU was not far behind: "If the FBI went into a small town in Kansas and created the opportunity for people to buy drugs, when there had been no history of drugs in that town, the people there would be outraged...
...That alone should have induced his colby William Lucas leagues to suspect his ethics, although if it wasn't enough, two years ago Thompson admitted to taking socalled campaign contributions from South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park...
...Unfortunately, Senator Harrison Williams doesn't have that excuse anymore...
...Certainly Jack Flynt, who presided over the House Ethics Committee's Koreagate investigation, understood what a congressman could do with impunity...
...Fairfax, Virginia 22038 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980 27...
...When he was a Florida judge, a judicial commission ordered him to undergo psychiatric examination...
...Jenrette's improbity does not stop there, however...
...The Honorable Frank Thompson is chairman of the House Administration Committee, which approves congressional expense accounts...
...In New Jersey, for example, there were reports that the U.S...
...Still another grand jury is now investigating Jenrette on charges that he used his congressional employees to sell real estate...
...The charges against Alexander were dropped soon after...
...Myers' cousin punched out a hotel security guard and the congressman dragged the victim into an elevator, to inflict further punishment...
...The FBI apparently caught him accepting, through a surrogate, shares in a titanium mine, in exchange for promising government contracts to ensure the mine's prosperity...
...Then a grand jury examined allegations that the congressman had been involved in the sale of some beach property which purchasers discovered to be not next to, but in, the ocean...
...I just didn't want the press and the country telling me what to do when I could do it myself," he explained...
...In light of all this, it is not surprising that the Abscam investigation was leaked to the press...
...When the fight was over, Myers cousin dropped his pants, displaying a South Philadelphia moon...
...Congress reflects the image of the American p e o p l e , " Alexander explained...
...However, "those at the top" in the union then negotiated a contract with the telephone company which required all non-union employees, like Harry, to pay CWA an "agency fee" equal to union dues to stay employed...
...The potential impact of the two decisions is enormous...
...The Honorable John Murphy is another committee chairman, specifically, of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee...
...When Senator David Pryor voiced concern over the way the press had played up the details of the videotapes before they could be seen by judges and juries, one could not help remembering that when Pryor himself, as a young congressman, had disguised himself as a nurse's aide to investigate unsavory practices in nursing homes, every newspaper in Arkansas had the details of his investigation before the evidence could be conveyed to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare...
...So much for the probity of our high elected officials...
...The workers forced to pay for this political support have rarely any voice in the selection of the union favored candidates or causes...
...In his way, Murphy is smart...
...About two years before Koreagate he had leased a piece of farmland in Georgia to the Ford Motor Company for $12,500, an amount that staggered the imagination of his neighbors, and then voted to weaken auto emissions standards for the auto industry...
...Congressman Wayne Hays (to resign three years later under the impetus of his own scandalous imbroglio), with Alexander at his side, convened an investigation of law enforcement at the National Airport...
...That congressional leaders are "shocked" by the revelations of Abscam would itself be shocking, were it to be believed...
...One such is the Honorable William Alexander...
...Alexander said he only "nudged" the officer with his station wagon to demonstrate "which way [he] wanted to go...
...The Honorable John Jenrette was already a member of the Appropriations Committee when he was filmed accepting Abscam bribes...
...The fact is, however, that rampant corruption in Washington is far from new...
...It is presently supporting more than 100 court cases involving the rights of employees across the nation...
...Allegedly, his share of the Abscam money was $50,000, although he let a friend pick it up for him...
...Even so, not a year later Myers was in line for a place on the House Appropriations Committee, ironically enough, the seat of the Honorable Daniel Flood, who had resigned before pleading mental incompetence in a hearing to determine whether, he should stand trial on charges that he had channeled federal grants to those who paid him bribes...
...The National Right to Work Legal s Defense Foundation, established in ^L, - 1968, provides free legal aid to workers whose rights have been violated as a result of compulsory unionism...
...In 1973 Alexander drove his station wagon into a National Airport policeman who had made 26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1980 the mistake of believing that traffic rules apply equally to congressional vehicles...
...Harry Beck had to pay up or be fired...
...And the publicity certainly didn't hurt his campaign for the Senate soon after...
...William Luaas is a w•'ter living in Washington, D. C. According to police reports, Myers stated that "because he was a congressman, he didn't have to abide by their rules...
...EMINENTOES THE BEST CONGRESSMEN MONEY CAN BUY When word got out that the FBI's 23-month, $800,000, 100-agent Abscam investigation had incriminated, among others, at least seven members of the House and one U.S...
...His taste for money appears to have gone unchecked, however...
...A few days after Abscam was disclosed, attorneys for the U.S...
...The House lost its appeal, and when the press reported this extraordinary legal exercise, we were assured it had nothing to do with Abscam...
...I was in bad shape," he told reporters, when explaining his inability to recall his relation to $50,000 and Abscam...
...Supposedly he passed, although soon after he won election to the House, dropped wife number three for wife number four, and overspent his $290,000 congressional office allowance...
...Supreme Court to seek a ruling that members of Congress do not have to respond to federal grand jury subpoenas for House records...
...No More Free Ride...
...It was the first time that a Federal court had declared that union political spending from mandatory "agency fees" is an infringement upon the rights to free speech and association enjoyed by private sector workers...
...Moreover, the Justice Department has been investigating him for having failed to report himself as a lobbyist for foreign interests...
...Even so, he's a stickler for appearance...
...but their claims not to know that their honorable colleagues were capable of such unethical conduct are as preposterous as their eulogies to the balanced budget and the sorely-pressed taxpayer...
...He awoke on his congressional office couch the next morning to find himself charged with two counts of assault and battery...
...He keeps a device in his congressional desk which tells him whether a visitor is wired to record him...
...A fight ensued...
...But the Beck decision reaffirms the basic principle that no worker in a free country should ever have to support anyone else's politics in order to retain his right to work...
...Court of Appeals and later the U.S...
...A Washington gossip columnist reported him relieved that so few of his exploits had been discovered...
...He once belonged to the Communications Workers of America union, but resigned "because the CWA was totally impersonal to anyone except those at the top...
...When his former wife was petitioning for a divorce, she complained that Jenrette had had relations with 22 different women...
...If you'd like to help workers like Harry Beck, we'd like to hear from you...
...First, his name was linked to a major marijuana smuggling investigation, which ended up with his former campaign manager going to prison...
...senator, House Speaker Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill was "shocked~'-and he was not alone...
...It was a full moon and I had three drinks...
...Jenrette also tends to drink too much, a proclivity he has recently tried to use to his best advantage...
...Williams is chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee...
...Harry, who was born and grew up in LaPlata, Maryland, has worked for the telephone company for 19 years...
...Similar protection was established for public employees in 1978 in the U.S...
...When the committee did finally meet it was without the Honorable John Murtha, who had himself been implicated in the Abscam investigation...
...Last year he and some friends were drinking in the cocktail lounge of a northern Virginia hotel when their conduct prompted an admonition from the management for making vulgar remarks to the waitresses...
...House of Representatives secretly went to the U.S...
...He was, for instance, a renowned philanderer...
...O'Neill said the House Ethics Committee was going to have to get to the bottom of all this because the integrity of Congress was at stake...
...No one has ever accused the Honorable Richard Kelly of being smart, but many have questioned his sanity...
...Thanks to a sympathetic prosecutor, who just happened to be a Democrat, he was let off with a plea of no contest to charges of disorderly conduct...
...Or I had three drinks and it was a 'half moon...
...And on March 16, 1979, in an historic decision, a Federal court ruled that a union's collecting or spending of compulsory fees for any purpose other than collective bargaining violates the Constitutional rights of employees who object...
...If we allow this to go on," said Representative John Seiberling, "no one is safe in this country...
...Supreme Court decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education —another case supported by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation...
...The principals in this morally repellent affair are bad en9ugh, but those who would defend them disingenuously, or worse, would shift the blame away from Capitol Hill, are little better...
...According to Time magazine, he has been accused of using his chairmanship to solicit political contributions...
...Attorney—appointed on the recommendation of Harrison Williams—initially questioned whether the case against the senator was worthy of prosecution...
...But the leak didn't prevent congressmen from trying to serve themselves instead of justice...
...Xhe "concern" over Abscam does not stop at pre-trial publicity, however, but extends to outrage over the "entrapment" practiced by the FBI, despite the fact that its victims sometimes traveled hundreds of miles to jump into the trap...
...He, too, has been down this road before...
...Myers himself headed back to Washington before the police arrived...
...The Abscam videotape shows that when he took his $25,000 in cash, he was careful to place the bills in his pockets without creating a wrinkle in his suit...
...Union officials spend an estimated $100 million in direct and "in-kind" support on political campaigns in a single election year— most of it raised through compulsory dues or "agency fees...
Vol. 13 • April 1980 • No. 4
